Clean rivers of plastic to protect the oceans

Keeping plastic out of the ocean is the new goal of the inventor of Ocean Cleanup, the famous engineer Boyan Slat, who is just over twenty years old. Known for his Great Garbage Patch project aimed at cleaning up the Pacific Ocean, the young man is now tackling the problem upstream, always with the aim of saving the planet from plastic pollution. It turns out that recovering waste from waterways before it goes to the open sea would be more efficient and less costly. This is the mission of Interceptor.

The Interceptor will have a 24 meter long barge which will allow it to intercept and collect waste in the water, 24 hours a day. To reduce waste production as much as possible, it is equipped with solar panels and lithium batteries. The system is therefore autonomous, does not interfere with flora and fauna, nor with the navigation of boats and can rid watercourses of at least 100,000 kilos of waste per day.

The Interceptor is already at work in Indonesia and Malaysia, some of the most polluted rivers in the world. Boyan Slat’s ambition is gigantic because his goal is to install the waste collector in the 1000 dirtiest rivers by 2025.